University of Wisconsin, Madison

Physics 433: Fall 2001

Computational Physics

Lectures/Presentations: 2:25PM - 3:15 PM, Monday, Wednesday
Laboratory Hours: 3:30 PM - 8:00 PM Monday, Tuesday
Location: Room 2409 Sterling Hall

Contacts

Professor:

Sridhara Rao Dasu
Department of Physics
4289 Chamberlin Hall
dasu@hep.wisc.edu
608-262-3678 (Office)
608-213-3675 (Wireless)

Students:

Class mail list (use sparingly for contacting all involved)

Do use email to contact me - I check email routinely even during weekends. If the questions are generic the answers will be mailed to the class mail list so that all students can benefit. Please request anonymity explictly if you so desire.

Introduction

Goal: Explore physics using computers!

This courses is designed to improve your conceptual understanding of various physics processes by exploring them in a more quantitative and visual way. It will also give you computational skills - namely scientific programming, data analysis, numerical analysis and Monte Carlo techniques, that are necessary for graduate research or future career.

The scheduled class time (MW 2:25PM) will include lectures that provide necessary physics and numerical methods background as well as hands-on training in tools. Adherence to the preset lab session time (M or T 3:30PM-4:20PM) is not mandatory. The instructor will be available in the computational physics facility up to 8:00PM on MT. Further, the physics computer lab linux machines will be available round-the-clock over the internet for those needing more flexibility - all you will need is a computer at home with X-windows server to access them.

Prerequisites for this course are completion of calculus based courses in general and modern physics (201-202-241 or 207-208-241 or 247-248-249). Knowledge of computer programming is also a prerequisite. Completion of or concurrent enrollment in Mechanics (311) and Numerical Methods (CS 412) is recommended.

Text books

There is no required text book. However, the following books are recommended.

Numerical Methods for Physics, Second Edition, Alejandro L. Garcia, Prentice Hall ( Garcia's software )
Prof. Dean Karlen's lecture notes, ( Original Gzipped Postscript from Carleton , PDF from my Web )
Numerical Recipes (in FORTRAN or C), W.H.Press et al., Cambridge University Press.

Schedule

All meetings will be in the Computational Physics facility, Room 2409, Sterling Hall.

Below is lecture schedule which is in detail for the early part of the semester and is very sketchy for the latter half. The idea is that we develop the course as is seen fruitful for most students. In each lecture, on Wednesdays, we will introduce a computational technique to explore a specific physics problem. On Mondays we do problem sets as part of laboratory work. Instructor will be available for consultation for about 4 hours, students need to complete the work during or after that session, and submit it for grading. Instructor will also be availble during Tuesday laboratory hours as well, to aid you in solving the problem sets and project work.

Day	Activity
Wed 05 Sep 2001	Introduction - Representation and visualization of physical variables
Mon 10 Sep 2001	Numerical differentiation and simple solutions to ODE - Projectile motion
Wed 12 Sep 2001	Runge-Kutta method - Kepler problem
Mon 17 Sep 2001	Integration of functions - Specific heat - Cornu spiral , Lab 0 (a.k.a. problem set 1)
Wed 17 Sep 2001,2	Random variables, simple PDFs - Relativistic kinematics
Mon 01 Oct 2001	Monte Carlo methods - Sampling probability distribution functions
Mon 01 Oct 2001,2	<Continuation of lecture 6>
Wed 03 Oct 2001	Application of Monte Carlo methods - Particle physics
Mon 08 Oct 2001	Monte Carlo methods - Relativistic kinematics lab
Wed 10 Oct 2001	Linear Algebra
Mon 15 Oct 2001	Continuation Lab 1
Wed 17 Oct 2001	Linear Algebra
Mon 22 Oct 2001	Runge Kutta method - Kepler problem Lab 2
Mon 29 Oct 2001	Lab 3
Wed 31 Oct 2001	Linear Algebra
Mon 12 Nov 2001	Lab 4
Wed 14 Nov 2001	Data Analysis
Mon 19 Nov 2001	Lab 5
Wed 21 Nov 2001	Data Analysis
Mon 26 Nov 2001	Lab 6
Wed 28 Nov 2001	PDE
Mon 03 Dec 2001	Project Presentations
Wed 05 Dec 2001	PDE
Mon 10 Dec 2001	Special topics
Wed 12 Dec 2001	Special topics

Labs

Every monday there will be problems assigned that can be partly worked out with the instructor present (upto 4 hours) in the computational laboratory. Left over work is to be completed by the student and submitted for grading.

Projects

Students are encouraged to pick topics for their project on their own. Do check the suitability of the topic selected with me. If assistance is needed please contact me.

Grading

Students registered for 3 credits of 433:

70% for Labs.
15% for project report.
15% for project presentation.